'Drumstick, You Are Hereby Pardoned'

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President Donald Trump continued a decades-long tradition of pardoning turkeys for Thanksgiving. Many Trump critics spent Tuesday joking Trump was using the opportunity to practice pardoning past and present members of his staff and family.

"As many of you know, I have been very active in overturning a number of executive actions by my predecessor. However, I have been informed by the White House Counsel's Office that Tater and Tot's pardons cannot under any circumstances be revoked. So we're not going to revoke them. Tater and Tot, you can rest easy," Trump said.

Moments later, Trump performed the official act: "Drumstick, you are hereby pardoned."

"Over the past 10 months, Melania and I had the pleasure of welcoming many, many special visitors to the great White House," Trump said, reading a pre-written speech.

"We hosted dozens of incredible world leaders, Members of Congress and along the way, a few very strange birds. We have yet to receive any visitors quite like our magnificent guest of honor today, Drumstick," Trump said. He then turned and spoke to the bird: "Hi, Drumstick."

"Drumstick I think will be very happy. I'm pleased to report that unlike millions of other turkeys at this time of the year, Drumstick has a very, very bright future ahead of him."

Trump also claimed President Harry Truman "did not grant the pardon. He refused. He was a tough cookie. Today I'm going to be a much nicer President."

That apparently is not quite accurate:

Trump says Harry Truman "refused" to pardon a Thanksgiving turkey, says he's going to be "a much nicer president." Truman was given a turkey as a gift, he didn't "refuse" to pardon it. #turkeyfactcheck